Publications frequently cite The Joshua Tree among rock and roll's greatest albums. It is one of those essential albums that even if you do not like the type of music you must have this album in your collection. In the same vein as people that do not listen to reggae but still have a Bob Marley album, or have only one metal album - generally Metallica's black album. The Joshua Tree is one of those ubiquitous records that is essentially soaked into our consciousness through repeated playings on radios, in department stores and in movies.

The record's wild success stems from its first three songs, all hit singles and staples in U2's live shows since - "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "With or Without You." Two more songs still take space in live shows as a heart of darkness in a U2 concert - "Running to Stand Still" and the band's heaviest song "Bullet the Blue Sky."

The appeal of The Joshua Tree is obvious. There is a living, breathing heartbeat throughout the songs. Joy. Despair. All things in between. U2 made it through the eighties on the promise of what they could become. Once they made it to that point they reached even farther. It is in Bono's voice as he sings near the top of his register, pushing it past the limit.

Working with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois again, U2 created a cinematic record. The music creates a space and time. From the opening of "Where the Streets Have No Name", the Edge's guitar pulls you in then lifts you up. Aural levitation. You can fill the pit of your stomach rise in time with the hairs on the back of your neck. With its gospel base, "I Still Haven't Found" is such a deceptively simple song. Bono's lyrics are quite basic but his vocals resonate.

"With or Without You" has been used and misused more than any other song. Plug it into headphones - without the distraction of a Friends episode or some other piece of crap that licensed the song - and the song is haunting, otherworldly. Its unfortunate the effect has probably worn off because we have all heard it so much.

At the center of The Joshua Tree is "Running to Stand Still" and "Red Hill Mining Town." Both are gorgeous, epics of songs. Stirring, emotional and drawing from that cinematic quality that sweeps up the entire record. The former is a longstanding concert number, most recently pared down to just Edge on keyboards on the Vertigo Tour. The latter is a lost classic of sorts. Bono's soaring vocals on "Red Hill Mining Town' were too difficult to duplicate on stage. The band shot a video for the song to be the lead off single for the album but pulled the plug when the song was not going to make the cut for the live show.

The band is quick to acknowledge America as the inspiration for The Joshua Tree. More than ever the roots of American music such as the blues began to filter into the band's sound. But it was the events of South America that inspired much of its content. An oft quoted - if slightly ridiculous - comment from Bono to the Edge was to put San Salvador through his amplifiers in "Bullet the Blue Sky." Another case of the U2 mythology making the guys in the band look like idiots, if you ask me. The other song ground in South America is far more affecting though.

The real mothers of the disappeared in Argentina, or Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo inspired "Mothers of the Disappeared". Mothers whose children were kidnapped or "disappeared" in the night during the Dirty War founded the group. 30 years later the military admitted over 9,000 of the kidnapped children are unaccounted for. The song is beautiful, another in the line of album closing hymns. On the PopMart Tour, over ten years after the song's release, at a tour stop in Argentina the real Mothers of the Disappeared stood on stage with the band for a performance of the song. Each mother wore a white scarf with the name of their child, to symbolize the blanket of their lost child. It is in these moments and in a song such as this, that U2 does step beyond the line of being just another rock band.

Midnight, our sons and daughters
Were cut down and taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

In the trees our sons stand naked
Through the walls our daughters cry
See their tears in the rainfall